Learn Thai Cooking in Koh Tao

Ingredient: Cabbage

Vegetarian and healthy Phad See Ew (ผัดซีอิ๊ว)

Our Phad See Ew recipe here reflects our strive for healthy cooking. This Chinese influenced noodle stir fry dish is traditionally done with copious amounts of oil and sugar, and rather few vegetables. The owners of street food stalls and restaurants soon realized, that Phad See Ew sells better like this. It tastes good but so does other junk food.
Doing some research I found this wonderful little video for preparing this dish which shows nicely what I mean:

Apart from the health aspect there is as well a little difficulty in replicating the shown way of preparing the dish. Watching the video I couldn’t help having an old song of Talking Heads in my head: Burning Down The House 🙂

We disagree that you need absolutely searing heat, Thai burners and the tin woks used in Thai street food stalls and restaurants to produce a tasty Phad See Ew. Our experience is rather, that for most westerners it is very difficult to get a good result with the traditionally used woks. These are very thin and light, and get hot very fast. If you don’t know exactly what you are doing, it’s a perfect recipe for disaster but not a very tasty dish.

We added a few more vegetables, reduced the use of cooking oil a lot and increased the cooking time just enough that someone who didn’t grow up using a wok can cope.

Cooking Class – Popiah (ปอเปี๊ยะ)

In this cooking lesson we are preparing one of the Thai versions of a worldwide popular starter and snack: Popiah, which is the name for spring rolls in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand.
Spring rolls are rolled and filled appetizers which come in a large variety. Its origins are from China. The Chinese chūn juǎn (春卷) literally translated means “spring roll” and comes from a pancake filled with fresh spring vegetables.
The popiah we are preparing in this cooking class is the fried one, the most common variety in Thailand. If our cooking students are interested, we teach as well the tiny snack variety shown in the picture. Other varieties of Popiah are “Salad Rolls”. This is often the choice or our more health oriented vegetarian students. The difference to the spring rolls described here is merely that it’s rolled in a different pastry and not deep fried. This way to prepare spring rolls is more common in Vietnam, which is the reason that the pastry used is called “Vietnamese spring roll pastry”. It actually is just rice paper.
For now have fun with the popiah cooking class.

Cooking Course recipe – Fried Rice (ข้าวผัด)

Fried rice is originally coming from China and probably is the most known food export from this marvelous cuisine. It first became a staple dish in almost all surrounding countries and then made it’s way all around the world in myriads of different ways to prepare.
In this cooking lesson we will prepare Fried Rice Chicken. Of course in the variety how fried rice developed in Thailand. Like many other Thai dishes you can cook Fried Rice with a variety of meats. Seafood or just vegetarian with tofu is an option as well. The main difference to the Chinese original is the choice of rice. In Thailand this dish is prepared with Jasmine Rice instead of regular long-grain rice.
The Thai name (ข้าวผัด) is pronounced Khao Phat. Khao means “rice” in Thai, and Phad “being stir-fried.
Thai fried rice is usually served with some lime and sliced cucumber as a side.
Now it is time to get hands on experience. Have fun with this lesson of our cooking course.

Thai Cooking Class – No Name Vegetable (โนเนมผัก)

Hardly found in any restaurant outside of Thailand, this cooking class is about a Thai snack, which is very popular with westerners, visiting the island destinations in the South of the country. The dish literally has no name in Thailand. It is a snack originating out of times of poverty, when people scrambled to make a living. This dish was made out of scraps. The name is probably not older than a few decades. It probably was named when American soldiers on leave from the Vietnam War were asking for the name of the dish. The Thai script in the title sounds “No Name Pak” with “Pak” meaning “vegetable”.
In our recipe for the cooking class is already mentioned in the ingredients “… and more vegetables of your choice” which can be taken face value – just experiment with any scraps you have at hand. They work as well with minced meats like pork and chicken and as a more sophisticated variety with prawns.
This snack is served with some tomatoes and lettuce. As a sauce you are usually given the same sweet chilly sauce which accompanies spring rolls when ordered in a restaurant. On our picture the sauce is a homemade sweet chilly sauce which preparation we will show you in another Thai Cooking Class recipe. If you like, you can prepare the curry paste yourself: Red Curry Paste

Thai cooking with Joy recipe:

Phad Thai – ” ผัดไทย “

A stir fried rice noodle dish found on literally every single night market in Thailand. Phad Thai is a real street food classic. It is pretty much a national dish, though not with a very long history. It became popular in Thailand during, and after world war II.
The recipe shown here is with the original preparation of the Tamarind Sauce, like taught in our Thai cooking lessons with Joy. It is possible to substitute this with the commonly available Tamarind paste.
Recently the Tourism Authority of Thailand published a video about this popular Thai dish:

The phase pictures in the recipe show preparing the sauce for about 4 portions at once, while the phase pictures for the Phad Thai itself show the preparation for only one portion. To have a good result, please don’t do more than one portion at a time or the noodles will stick together.

200gMeat / PrawnsIf you are doing Phad Thai with meat: Heat cooking oil in the wok and fry the meat until almost cooked first. Here we show Phad Thai Goong (Shrimp) which have a shorter cooking time and so are added later.

200gMeat / PrawnsIf you are doing Phad Thai with meat: Heat cooking oil in the wok and fry the meat until almost cooked first. Here we show Phad Thai Goong (Shrimp) which have a shorter cooking time and so are added later.

Instructions

Phad Thai Sauce

Mix tamarind with some water and use only the liquid, like learned in the cooking course, put aside. On the pic are the ingredients: Tamarind and the finished Tamarind Sauce, Palm Sugar, Red Onions and Salt.

Heat cooking oil in a pot and fry the red onions in it until golden brown.

Add tamarind sauce, palm sugar and salt. Mix well.

Add water, bring to boil and put aside

Phad Thai

Ingredients

Fry the garlic and add the egg(s) and stir until a little solid.

Add Phad Thai Sauce with the noodles. Make sure that the Phad Thai sauce covers the noodles. Bring to boil and let it simmer until the noodles are cooked. At this point most of the liquid should have evaporated

Add Cabbage and Carrots. Mix well.

Add prawns, bean sprouts and chives. Stir well. Add soy sauce and be careful not to overcook the prawns.